admin Guns, New Media

Live Tweeting PBS Frontline Episode “Gunned Down: The Power of the NRA”

Thanks to a recommendation from my fellow sociologist of guns, Jennifer Carlson, I was asked by the digital content manager for PBS’s FRONTLINE to participate in live Tweeting before, during, and after the premier of their upcoming episode, “Gunned Down: The Power of the NRA.”

The episode airs at 10:00am Eastern Time on Tuesday, January 6th. I will be Tweeting from @gunculture2pt0 and PBS will be tweeting from @frontlinepbs — using the hashtag #GunnedDown.

Frontline Gunned DownHere is a brief description of the episode by PBS: “How the NRA became a powerful lobbying force. Included: remarks from individuals on both sides of the gun-control debate, including former NRA spokesman John Aquilino; Vice President Joe Biden; and former NRA executive vice president Warren Cassidy.”

A five minute YouTube preview video is also available:

I was also asked to suggest to PBS Frontline some individuals who might live Tweet the episode from a more pro-gun perspective. I will be interested to see who they may have asked and who may have said yes.

Of course, anyone can Tweet the event using the hashtag #GunnedDown, so I will look forward to “seeing” old and new virtual friends/colleagues Tuesday night.

 

admin Culture, New Media

Facebook, R.I.P.

A.J. Jacobs, in Esquire magazine, has once again published his year end obituaries. Among the sad deaths he notes for 2007:

The Street Cred of Facebook, at 4

The street cred of Facebook, a popular social-networking site, died Wednesday in St. Louis. It was four years old. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2004, Facebook gained a respectable level of hipness by catering exclusively to college students for several years. The average Facebook page included photos of awkward hugging at the bowling-alley arcade and quotes from Anchorman. It turned seriously ill in 2006 when it became open to anyone from corporate America, and finally expired when Josh Kimberling, a successful optometrist in St. Louis, created a page that included photos of his wife’s dressage horse and a quote from George Will.

admin New Media

Facebook? Fine by Me

So, I avoided joining Facebook for some time. In the first place, I thought it was lame for a grown-ass man to be on there. It’s for kids, not a twenty-eighteen year old like myself. In the second place, I already have a web presence for posting ideas and pictures and the like. And I have an email address if people want to communicate with me.

Well, I broke down this past week and registered and I have to say, it is quite a site. It is an awesome way to keep track of alot of people all at once and just let them know you’re thinking about them. Especially for someone like me who has moved from California to Wisconsin to Indiana to Virginia back to Indiana and now to North Carolina. It will make it so much easier to keep track of people I thought I would probably lose track of.

So, let the haters hate on us old timers crashing Facebook. It’s fine by me.